It is now illegal for French restaurants to sell free-refills of soft drinks

Health experts in the UK have warned that fizzy drinks are packed with sugar and offer zero nutritional value on countless occasions, but France has taken things one step further in its fight against obesity.

From Friday, a new law will come into effect which bans French restaurants and fast food outlets from offering free unlimited refills of soft drinks, the BBC reports.

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It means that all public eateries, including school canteens, will no longer be able to serve 'bottomless' sodas from self-service machines, which let you guzzle down as much as you like after paying for just one drink.

The ban aims to "limit, especially among the young, the risks of obesity, overweight and diabetes" in line with recommendations from the World Health Organization. According to The Independent, the National Health and Nutrition Programme in France has also set a target to reduce the proportion of children who consume more than half a glass of artificially sweetened drinks a day by 25 per cent.

"It is the role of the law to establish a framework to protect the population against a trade-upmanship that tends to make the 'free' surplus of food supply... an argument to attract consumers and encourage them to excessive consumption which can be harmful to health," representatives for the programme said

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This isn't the first time extreme measures have been put in place, though.

In 2004, France banned vending machines in schools from serving anything other than fruit and water and in 2012, a tax was slapped on sweet drinks.

Meanwhile, in the UK, we're a little further behind in the war on sugar. While a sugar tax here has been given the go-ahead, it won't come into effect until 2018.

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